Echoed
by Aegis Linnear
Summary: Post-S3. Beacon has fallen, and Taiyang regularly plays host to a couple of his daughters' friends as they try to recover. When their team's grieving leader joins them one day, will the double widower recognise that same grief in time to avoid the worst first impression he'll ever make? Spoiler: No. No he will not. Rated T for probable language later on, and if Qrow shows up.
1. Foot, Meet Mouth

_Author's Note:_

 _So I haven't written in, basically, years. I haven't ever uploaded anything before, but this is something I felt like putting out there. While rusty at putting words in rows, I'm doing this partly to deal with some things of my own, so I intend to finish this better than I start it. I've always wondered how this interaction – between S3 and S4 – would actually go down, but I've figured Ren and Nora would spend a lot of time making sure both Ruby and Jaune knew their friends were there for them. When Jaune finally got talked into coming to visit, would Tai spot the grief he carries with him? Would he find it familiar? Would FFNet recognise italics on an OpenOffice document?_

 _Let's find some answers._

'Hey, guys. C'mon in.'

Taiyang stepped back from the doorway, allowing the two visitors entry. They were familiar by now, though he still occasionally found himself wrong-footed by the sheer diversity in personality traits he often found under his roof.

They were here to see Ruby, of course. Yang, three months after Beacon fell, had barely moved from her bed. She was refusing visitors, and there'd been more than one brief flare of temper from her when pressed on it – flares that, after a moment, went out and left her as slumped and withdrawn as before. Tai couldn't decide, some days, whether or not he was glad to see she could still get mad.

Thoughts snapping back to the present, he greeted the pair of youths crossing his threshold. He had a lot of time for the boy, Ren, whose calm, well-mannered exterior – _I can never read that kid_ – spoke of quiet competence. Lacking any sort of info on what their families were like (and having seen his queries about where they were from deflected with an expertise that told him yes, they were experts at dodging that question and no, he absolutely didn't want to know the answers) left him without too much to say to the dark-haired young man; on the other hand, since his role in their visits often boiled down to providing a snack or two for the company and then leaving the kids to it, he wasn't usually caught up in awkward silences.

Ren did, however, act as a great parking brake for his partner. Nora Valkyrie loved to talk, in a way that reminded him of Ruby the few times she'd got hold of cotton candy as a little girl. She seemed permanently wired, and he thanked the gods frequently for Ren making sure she took a breath – though those still seemed minutes apart sometimes. His training had come to mind when he saw them – not as a Huntsman, but as a teacher, where the scope of the profession occasionally led one to spot the effects of trauma in a student. Both of the kids seemed to have adapted to their mysterious difficulties in ways that left them near polar opposites, but Tai had no doubt from looking at them now that they complemented one another well. He did, once or twice, wonder if either of them could see what Ruby had told him everyone else could see...not that their apparent blindness to their mutual emotional bond was any of his business.

'...came with us today,' Nora finished, then paused and leaned a little closer. 'Uh...Mister Long? Hello?'

Tai snapped back again. Damn it, tuning this girl out was a bad habit. 'Sorry. I uh – my head went other places for a second there. Teacher stuff. Y'know.' _Bad cover, Tai._

'Oh. Well, here he is.' Nora stepped aside, and Taiyang focused on the doorway – and came face to face with _himself_. He froze, staring for a second, before some part of his brain kicked the rest of him in the shorts and ordered him closer. 'Hi,' he began, suddenly wishing more than anything he'd listened to Nora for the past minute. 'Call me Taiyang.' He offered his hand, and it was taken as the new boy with the old, familiar pain in his eyes stepped into the house and let the door close behind him. Gods, but he knew that expression from old, bitter experience.

'Jaune Arc,' he introduced himself, forcing a smile of greeting. Tai shook his hand firmly, noting that there was strength in the kid's grip – noodly limbs, but he'd long known that size didn't always indicate power – and a brief, almost unnoticeable gap between the grip and the strength.

'Friend of my girls, huh,' remarked the older man, as the other two watched the introduction. 'I feel like as a father I should be concerned, but I guess I can trust you from what I've heard.' Jaune winced and lowered his eyes. Taiyang paused, but no response was forthcoming. Not even when Ren's hand came to rest on Jaune's shoulder.

'So, hey, is Ruby around?' asked Nora, brightly – earning a grateful look from the two boys, and a dumbstruck nod from Taiyang. The older man waved vaguely in the direction of his younger daughter's bedroom, and managed a half-hearted 'Sure, go on through' to the kids, while trying to come to terms with the enormity of the foot he'd just put firmly in his mouth.

 _There were only three of them here. Oh, gods._ The pieces fell into place immediately. Ruby's stories home, of Team JNPR. Her memories of the Fall of Beacon. The Nikos girl. The look ingrained on Jaune's face, the look Taiyang wished he didn't know so well, didn't have to see in the mirror day after day. The grief, going beyond a lost friend, that had turned Jaune from a shy young man meeting his buddy's dad to a silent, withdrawn child as soon as _some total moron in cargo shorts_ had poked it with a stick five seconds after meeting him.

Taiyang leaned against the wall, gazing at nothing, and brought one hand up by his head. He went still for a moment, and then did what Summer would have done if she'd seen him be so tactless to a bereaved kid. The slap's impact knocked his head to one side, and he remained still for a moment before hauling himself wearily upright. Summer wouldn't have been done with him yet.

He headed into the kitchen to busy himself with putting together some snacks for their guests, scolded the whole way by the woman he wished was there to kick his ass for this, and tried to figure out something he could do to apologise to the young man who'd stared at him across a decade and a half with a hurt he'd never escape from.

Maybe he could help the kid deal, at least.


	2. Aftermath

_**A.N. So I find myself looking at a Follow counter that's about ten, in eight hours, and I wonder what the hell I did right. Holy crap, guys. When I said I was making this primarily for myself, I'm not gonna lie – this is one of the reasons, to see if I could make something people liked. I expected maybe three follows in a week, so I'm a little blown away by this. I'll try to live up to you.**_

* * *

 _Beacon Academy. Twenty years ago. The dormitory of Team STRQ._

SLAP.

'Ow! Shit, Summer!' Taiyang stumbled back, reeling from the blow. There wasn't much force behind it, certainly not to a brawler like him – but it had been unexpected, and right on the swelling bruise already blooming into purple on his cheek, and Summer was...oh. Summer was probably more angry than he'd ever seen her before.

It hadn't been that long since the fight, either; long enough for the adrenaline to wear off, and leave him fatigued with its absence. It had been a good fight, though, and he had no doubt Qrow and Raven were busy fixing up their lumps. They'd gotten less of it than him; Tai himself had come to the defence of a classmate against a known asshole, a move his personal book had always listed under Heroic Boy Stands Up To Bullies, but which Summer's book seemed to include under Idiot Doesn't Run For A Teacher. He had to admit, in the aftermath, her method might've been more long-term effective.

Qrow had jumped in when he saw Tai's fists start flying, knowing his buddy would need a hand. Raven had promptly moved in when she saw Qrow take a side, because...well, Raven. Not much seemed to get to her, but she was startlingly passionate when she had something to fight for. The few glimpses he'd gotten of her had told him enough; more than one member of Jay Winchester's little clique would be sporting bruises and swollen faces that they probably wouldn't dare admit had come from a girl a year younger.

It hadn't just been a good fight, either, even though Tai's own face sported its share of bruises and blood from what had almost been a broken nose. It had been justified, in the most epic way; a boy in their year, Vincent Lief, had been taunted for almost half an hour about 'the company he kept'; the faunus girl on his team, a deer girl named Saffron, had apparently existed too much for Winchester's self-control to keep a grip on his mouth. Lief had taken it all stoically, until one of the mouthy sophomores had suggested he kept her around for physical aid that had nothing to do with combat. He hadn't been so delicate in phrasing it, and had included the suggestion of 'steering her by the antlers', but Lief's response of surging from his seat and breaking three of the douchebag's teeth had been – in Tai's words, when explaining himself to a teacher later – 'Such an inspiring example of support for one's teammates, ma'am, that I was inspired to follow his example and support the hell out of his teammate right beside him'. Lief hadn't spoken during their subsequent chewing-out, beyond an attempt to claim responsibility for the whole thing in what _he'd_ called a personal loss of control, but he'd shot Tai a grateful look at that. Tai knew he'd gained a closer friend out of this, at the cost of the black eye and bruised ribs. He considered it a good trade.

So why the hell was he getting beaten on by Summer?

'You JERK!' she squeaked – _squeaked?_ \- and tried to slap him again. He was ready for it now, though, and she wasn't exactly a martial artist when unarmed – the telegraphed move was easy to back away from, his head tilting away to get out of her palm's arc. 'You didn't even consider what it'd do to us if you got expelled, did you?! If you get kicked out of school, what the hell are we going to do?!' She was vibrating with rage, now, fists clenched, ramrod straight. _Crap_ , he thought, his indignation softening immediately. He knew that look; Summer was trying like hell not to show she was crying, and that meant either she didn't want some idiot to have the satisfaction of seeing what they'd done...or she was so furious she was having to control the urge to cry in case it got in the way of venting her fury.

'Probably get reassigned and wind up with someone less stupid' was exactly the wrong thing to say, he decided as soon as it left his mouth. Summer was his team leader, but that wouldn't stop what came next; it just meant she knew him well enough to pinpoint his weaknesses. Her eyes widened, and she dropped her shoulders in a way that made every combat instinct in Tai's body scream that he was about to get kicked in the groin. He almost brought his hand down to block the blow, but what came next made him wish she'd just hoof him in the nuts and be done with it.

The sound of her knees hitting the floor was loud enough to make him wince – an action that itself brought a further wince, from the way it stretched his aching face – but by the time he'd reacted by moving closer she'd let go and descended into bawling, sobbing. Ugly-crying, Qrow had called it once when describing the same sort of action from someone else in the cafeteria one day. Tai had wondered what the hell that looked like; now, with fat, hot tears spilling down her twisting, flushed face and her voice cracking as she wailed openly in their dorm, it was like a punch in the gut to find out. Frantic, Tai kneeled in front of her and put his hand on her shoulder, half fearing she'd push it away and make him feel even worse. He figured he'd deserve it if she did, but he wasn't going to let his friend cry.

'Damn it,' he began after a few moments, feeling his petite leader's shoulder shake in his palm. 'I screwed up again, didn't I?'

No response. He might as well have told her to stop crying, something he'd learned from experience was a bad move with a girl in tears. 'Listen, Summer...I didn't mean it like that,' he began again, trying for gentle now, hoping she could hear him. He could barely hear himself; her sobbing hadn't grown any quieter, and he felt like a dirtbag for making the observation when there were other things to consider here. 'I just...I get dumb when I'm fired up,' he half-whispered. 'I know I'm on a team now, and I've got responsibilities. To all of you guys.' That wasn't the half of it; much as Raven liked to hurl herself around in a fight, they knew that Taiyang was their tank, their anchor. With Taiyang standing his ground in combat, the others could orbit him safe in the knowledge that they weren't losing terrain. He moved forward or he stayed still; his apparent inability to retreat was only useful so far, though, and had a nasty habit of spilling outside of combat or training scenarios.

Summer's sobs were slowing, at least. But a small fist still punched him feebly in the chest, more weakened by the shaking from her tears than anything else.

'I'm working on it. Okay? I am. I've been counting in my head and stuff like you taught me, and Qrow's next to me most of the time and that's a real good distraction from wanting to punch people.' He didn't add that the male Branwen's Semblance generally accomplished this by making him scared to stand up and deck someone in case he fell on his ass or a chandelier fell on him or something similarly ludicrous. 'And let's face it, Raven tends to look at me like I'm an idiot when I do it too. Not sure why she joined in this time, but...heh.' The digression was quickly abandoned. 'I don't...think we're in trouble, though. Ozpin didn't look really upset. Maybe he heard what they said. Hell, maybe he's heard them saying it before, they've never been quiet about it-' He stopped as she punched at him again.

'That's just it!' she squeaked again, her fist pounding onto his thigh. She was hitting harder again, too. 'You hit them. And you fought and you won, I guess, but what did you _achieve_? What did you change? They called her a streetwalker to her best friend's face, Tai!' She looked up at him, reddened eyes still streaming, her voice trembling through every other word. 'And Jay's the worst. He believes it, every bit of it. That whole family are the same, mine and his used to vacation in similar places and – it's not important,' she interrupted herself, briefly looking inward and wincing at a memory. 'But trust me. He's been raised on it, he doesn't know anything else. Kicking the tar out of him won't _change_ that, Tai. It'll just make you the...the sympathiser, in his eyes. The bleeding heart who doesn't accept the superiority of one over the other that he can't stop seeing. Leaving a footprint on his butt isn't going to change what he thinks. It's not going to change what he teaches whatever poor little thing ends up being his child, it won't stop him poisoning their head with the same... _augh_.' She shook her head, frustrated. 'All you've done is hurt him, Tai. And I hope it felt good, because you've gotten into trouble a lot and you might need this to be worth it.' She paused, and looked up at him – and damn it, if he wasn't carrying a torch for Raven, he'd probably have kissed her. Right then, she was _beautiful_.

'In my defence...'

'You've defended yourself already, Tai. I've defended you, too. You've done your talking. Now you listen.' Holy crap, when she got resolute, though. 'I don't want to lose my team to a temper tantrum, Tai. I need you calmer, and I need you – _we_ need you – to stay out of that kind of trouble. We'll have plenty of punching to do when we start taking missions in the new year, when we begin shadowing Huntsmen. You've wanted to see that new teacher in action, right? The one with the moustache?'

'Port, yeah,' he replied, starting to breathe a little easier. This wasn't yelling any more. She was reasoning with him, not kicking him. Gods knew he deserved a little bit of a kicking; maybe she figured he'd brought enough of that on himself today already.

'Well, before we get a shot at that, we need to _not get expelled_ ,' she emphasised it with pokes of one slim finger to his chest. 'That means no pranking Professor Sorrel, no spreading rumours that Qrow still wears that skirt to bed, and absolutely no having to explain how Jay Winchester's karma ran over his dogma and your knuckles were there to witness it. Okay?' She pulled him into a hug, then, putting her head on his chest. He froze, then relaxed a little. This was how Summer led; not just by example, but by showing her team she cared about them and inspiring them to live up to her. 'You're all my best friends, Tai. I don't know how I'd handle myself if we got pulled apart.'

Tai brought a hand up to her back, patted her gently once or twice. 'Okay. I am sorry, Summer. I...' _I didn't think. I wasn't thinking._ She had heard it all, and she'd pointed out before that those were explanations but not excuses; they were descriptions of the problem, nothing more. He wouldn't irritate her further by saying it again right now. 'I'm gonna try to go for calmer solutions to stuff. Later, when things aren't hurting so much, I might need to bounce a couple ideas off you for handling myself like that. If you're okay with it.'

'Sure!' she chirped, the past five minutes still leaving a little mark on her voice, but all the brighter for having something she could help him with. 'I – I'm good for that. Whenever,' she added, looking at the door briefly. 'Just...bounce ideas off me instead of bouncing slimeball sophomores off the floor, okay?'

'You got it,' he replied softly, a little grin creasing his wide, expressive face as he leaned back. He'd wondered sometimes if Summer had a little crush on him; things being as they were, he'd never pursued it, and he'd tried like hell not to lead her on by accident. He was into Raven, and Summer needed as level a head as she could get if she was going to handle this bunch for another three and a half years. 'I do have one question, though.'

'What?' She sat back, her white robe pooled on the floor around her as she started to pull herself to her feet, its sleeves still darkened with tears.

' _His karma ran over his dogma_?' Tai couldn't quite keep the laughter out of his voice, even less so with the squawk that escaped him when she flushed and put a palm on his forehead to push him backward onto his butt again.

'Shut up,' she smiled, the warmth of deep friendship in her voice as she turned and left.

* * *

 _ **A.N. Does anyone else get the impression that school-age Taiyang would share a character trait or two with Chris Pine's James Kirk? No? Just me then. Okay.**_


	3. Take A Will Save

_**So everyone's had a fun winterfestimas? Or as fun as could be managed at least. Hey, RT, where was the early-show worldbuilding on the winter-solstice party bit? That could've been awesome while things were still fun for the cast. Slightly shorter chapter again this week, due to time constraints in life.**_

* * *

 _'No,' whispered the elf, leaning back to make herself better heard. 'The weapon isn't so simple as a poisoned pin in a chair cushion, you know. We've made sure this brute's reign of terror ends the second he puts an empty glass down on the desk right in the spot where he usually puts a full one. It took time, effort, and six months of studying cabinetmaking, but that's the price you pay to be the best assassin this side of-'_

 _'Wait a second.' A hand landed on her slim shoulder. Elliania looked up in surprise to see Taldri looking down at her, an uncertain smile on the ranger's face. 'Someone's playing fast and loose with secret plan information again. If you're going to spill that many beans, can't you at least do it when the halfling's experimenting with recipes with our dinner on the line?'_

 _There was a pause. 'Was that a joke?' asked Bunch, the halfling in question, as she hoisted herself from her spot in the middle of the apparatus they'd built for scrying their target's location. 'Because I feel like that was meant to be a joke. A disturbance in the aether, as if millions of terrible punchlines whining about food cried out at once, and were silenced.'_

 _'...It was banter,' replied Taldri, a hint of frustration in his voice. 'I thought you would run with it. There's a lot of banter in this story, I felt like I was ready to take the plunge and join in.'_

 _'I think we've both learned something from this,' replied Bunch, disappearing back into the workings of the arcane device and making yet another attempt at a Knowledge: Arcane roll._

'I thought it was clever,' remarked Nora, looking up from her player's guide. Another day, another character, as Ruby had remarked – the redhead was rapidly becoming infamous among the teens for propelling her characters into situations where only a natural twenty roll could save them, and then rolling more or less anything but. This would be her fourth, and she'd picked an orc. So far, things were looking – as Nora ominously said – _hammeriffic_.

'You are the gourmet,' replied Ren, picking up his Taldri figurine from where it had stood and examining the paint job for flaws for what felt like the twentieth time. Something, and he couldn't pinpoint it, was different.

'I'm the one with the high metabolism,' replied Nora primly, turning her nose up at her partner's laconic comment before flicking her gaze back to him and shooting him a brief, brilliant smile. 'And the one who always knows what's good to eat. And what's good to eat is usually what you made, so, y'know. Tendency to knock stuff outta the park there.'

'Is it really that big a deal if the innkeeper hears what we're planning?' asked Jaune, his fake elf ears starting to slip off his head once again as he looked back and forth between Ren and Ruby. The brunette was surrounded by cookie crumbs as well as her DM's screen, having dipped into what she'd called her _Super Secret Dad Must Never Know Oh Hi Dad_ snack stash to get 'into character' for a halfling's appetite. 'I mean this ogre guy, whatsisname-' He consulted his notes. 'Trenk The Super Un-vincible – he's been terrorising the place for months, right?'

'We have no idea if the people of this village are brave enough to harbour someone with intentions like ours,' replied Ren, turning Taldri slowly for effect. 'The ogre may have them so frightened of his wrath they'd be willing to inform him ahead of time, in return for mercy.'

'Heck, it's even possible he's convinced them to help him raid other villages,' added Nora, eyes flicking from book to sheet as she noted down skill point allocations. 'Some people decide doing the right thing for themselves means playing along with the bad guy.'

Ruby's eyes slid downward for a moment. Someone, months ago, had made that decision. Now Penny was dead. Now Pyrrha was dead. She paused, almost reflexively putting the brakes on that train of thought. That wasn't now, and it wasn't here. It wasn't a thought that fit a warm gathering of friends and so it would be discarded.

After all, it would still be there later. Time enough to cry when it was dark, and she was alone. She could put it off that long, for herself and for Jaune, and Ren and Nora. At least they had each other, close in ways no one else (with the exception of the pair themselves) could miss – in ways that several people had assumed, actually, given what she'd heard about Jaune going to Ren for advice about girls – and what she'd heard about Blake. Going to Ren. For advice about girls, particularly energetic ones. Ruby had felt horribly conflicted about that – part of her wanted her sister to be happy, and knew she liked Blake in a way, but part of her had been terrified of having to lead a team that had suffered the fallout of a romantic rejection among its own members. She'd felt guilty for weeks over her quiet, unspoken relief when Yang had seemed to handle Blake's apparent interest in Sun with nary a blink.

'Some people are jerks,' remarked Jaune, glaring down at the board. It struck Ruby that it'd been a long, silent ten or fifteen seconds...or at least, she hoped it'd only been that long. 'But yeah, okay. Can I roll Deception to try to throw him off the scent?'

'Sure,' she replied, pouncing on the lifeline of a topic to drag her mind off the past. 'High DC, though. It's gonna take some fast talking, you just told him basically the whole plan.' Fifteen, she decided. If he hit fifteen or over, she'd let it slide. She hadn't been planning on a mole among the townsfolk feeding information to the villain, but she'd learned to listen to the paranoia of players when it came to finding ways to throw them a curveball or two.

Jaune was rolling when a knock at the door drew their attention. It swung open after a second, and her father walked in with a tray of hot chocolate in mugs. 'Hey, kids. Getting to be cold nights now, I figured you might like something warm. You guys eaten dinner yet?' Ruby hadn't; she glanced to her friends, knowing Nora would make room for another dinner if she had. Ren shook his head at her, then followed Ruby's gaze to Jaune. The other boy had turtled in on himself a little, but forced himself to look up and make eye contact with her dad. 'I...uh. We didn't eat yet. We're planning to put something together when we're home.'

The two blondes regarded each other for a moment, and something passed between them that Ruby couldn't identify. Then Taiyang broke the silence. 'Well, dinner hasn't happened here yet, so I'll make a couple extra portions and bring them up for you guys, if you're okay with it. Beef stew, and I've got some bread I baked this morning. Just the thing for a winter evening with your buddies,' he added, with a hint of...was that fear in his eyes? Holy crap, what did her dad have to be scared of? She almost got up, but Taiyang's gaze flicked to her and pinned her where she sat. This was something she'd hear about later, and Dad Was Dealing With This For Now. She knew that look of old, though most of it had been when he'd upset Yang in one of the myriad ways a father could upset a hot-tempered teenage daughter.

Oh gods. Her dad was the reason Jaune had looked ready to cry when he came in. Forget curiosity, she was gonna give her father a piece of her mind later. She let her eyes tell him so, but he didn't look at her again to get the message; he was looking at Jaune once more. 'Listen, uh...Jaune. I think I...can we talk?' he asked, hesitantly, as he set the cocoa mugs down. 'I just...just for a minute.' Jaune looked back up at him and nodded slowly, hauling his smaller frame upright. Taiyang looked back at the others. 'Milk and sugar's in there, guys. Ren, mind making sure Ruby doesn't go over three sugars in hers?' The foreign boy nodded once – gods, the whole room was holding its breath here, Ruby thought with a bite of her lip – as Taiyang nodded toward the door.

Jaune followed him out. The other three exhaled. Nora reached for her cocoa. 'Well that was tense.'

'What the heck happened out there?' whispered Ruby fiercely, shocked by the past twenty seconds. 'My dad looks like he just had to tell Yang he broke her bike's headlamp!'

The two looked at each other. Ren, the diplomat, met Ruby's gaze. 'Your father made a joke about trusting Jaune around his daughters. It didn't look like he'd...figured it out, until a second after he said it. Jaune's still having the nightmares where he loses the rest of us, too, so...' That part, they were glad Jaune wasn't there to hear. He was probably aware, or at least understood that his friends would discuss his state if they felt concerned about him, but he didn't need it to happen in his face.

'Oh, man,' whispered the brunette, looking back toward her door. The other pair mirrored the sentiment with a couple of nods, before Nora looked back down at the board for a moment and blinked.

'Hey, Ren, your miniature's wearing lipstick. You do that?'

'… _Ruby._ '

* * *

 _ **A/N: I have a very depressing headcanon about the whole BlackSun/Bumbleby ship-to-ship combat thing. I don't support one over the other, beyond throwing my support behind whoever makes Blake happy – but the way I've interpreted a lot of signals all three involved have given off, I have a terrible feeling that Yang has a serious thing for Blake and Blake either does not know or doesn't return her feelings. Leading to Blake and Sun being together, and Yang having to cope with watching that happen.**_

 _ **I don't want that to be how things turn out. It's just where it looks like it might, to me. What the hell.**_


	4. Rubbing It In

_**Couple of days late this week. Sorry about that, not really something I could avoid. Normal scheduling should resume on Wednesday evening.**_

* * *

 _Beacon Academy. Nineteen years ago._

'I am _so freaking bored_!' whined Qrow, hurling himself onto his back with his feet in the air. 'This was going to be awesome thirty minutes ago, what happened?'

'You came to terms with it being a blackout?' asked Raven flatly, not for the first time wishing she had something sharp. At this point it wouldn't even be for the entertainment value of flourishing it idly near her brother and watching him react; she'd settle for the monotony of a whetstone if it meant she could do something with her hands.

Beacon had suffered a blackout – technically a brownout, given the nature of the issue. A downed generator had left most of the dorms facing an evening of darkness, boredom and the minor but potent disasters that came from roomfuls of bored, antsy, monster-slaying athletes with combat training. The staff had taken the chance to turn this into a 'bonding opportunity' by having the students bring bedrolls and pillows into the main dining room so they could be accommodated in one place; as well as making sure every student was visible to a teacher, the evening's resolution was to make friends. To network, to put it more bluntly; one never knew, as a professional huntsman, when one's life might lie in the hands of another. In such cases, it paid to have friends. The school had even managed to rouse its kitchens enough to prepare a late supper buffet, and the room was frequently crossed by students making a run for snacks.

'I thought there'd be more girls,' pouted the male twin, earning a snort of laughter. 'Yeah, laugh it up, Tai, it's all right for some.' Tai's chuckle had come from the other side of Raven, where he sat companionably and waited – as he often found himself waiting – for some sign that she approved or disapproved of him this close. It was the one place he'd learned tact; literally the one place it entered his life at all, noted Qrow as STRQ's leader came into view, almost haloed by the blindingly white hooded robe-cape-thing she always wore, its scarlet lining seeming to undulate by itself when she moved right. He tipped her a laconic salute from where he lay, his squirming having left him almost upside down on the armchair he'd occupied.

'You know, you should really sit the right way up on that thing, Qrow,' she greeted him in turn, with that pretty little smile. 'One of these days you're going to fall, or someone's going to tickle your feet or something.' Qrow grimaced at the implied threat, playful though it was, and righted himself – more or less – so he lay sideways across it. She rolled her eyes good-naturedly, silently conceding that this was the best she would get out of him today.

'Hey Summer,' greeted Taiyang, without moving – barely looking round, really. Qrow kept his face carefully still, once he spotted the visible signs of Summer doing the same at Taiyang's indifference. He didn't know how long she'd liked Taiyang; it had to be a while, though, considering the length of time he'd been aware of her attention on his best friend. She always had to stifle a quick pout when she witnessed him cosying up to Raven so attentively, more so since Raven's own attention was so rarely anywhere near him. There was no way his twin wasn't aware that Tai liked her, no way at all, but they knew – they all knew – she'd had a casual partner or two already this school year. So had Qrow, in fairness; their upbringing had led to a certain nihilistic, cavalier attitude about such things. _You might as well enjoy yourself when the chance comes up_ , as Raven had put it once when she'd been pushed to justify spending a couple of nights in someone else's dorm room on the down low. Tai had been hurt by this, as anyone with a crush would be; it did gratify Qrow, though, to see that his actual affection for Raven didn't seem to be particularly diverted by the couple of dalliances she'd bothered with in Beacon. It told him that Tai's interest wasn't so shallow as to be diverted by any puerile attitude toward her history with other guys. He wondered, though, how Tai would react to the third time. He'd seen her flirting with someone in the year above them earlier, and he'd learned to recognise that look of triumph and anticipation on someone's face when Raven said yes to them.

'Tai,' greeted their leader after the briefest possible pause, clasping her hands girlishly behind her back. 'You kinda look bored.'

'I'm good,' he replied, going back to pretending not to look at Raven. 'But there's kinda nothing to do, I guess.'

'I've got something,' she replied quickly, a little eagerly. Qrow's amused reaction to that was difficult to hide, but he managed it somehow. He didn't need another lecture about self-control later. 'It's, uh...it's a game. Kind of complicated. But adventures, and fighting monsters and stuff. Magic powers, swords, storytelling. I think with all four of us we could play a nice little intro game.'

'Three,' replied Raven shortly. 'I've got places to be soon.'

Summer's eyes widened at her, and the dull red of Raven's gaze met her coming the other way. She was more... _prudish_ was Qrow's word for it, though he wouldn't say it out loud. _Stuck-up_ was Raven's, and she hadn't said it to Summer's face. Yet. The brunette's attitude toward intimacy held it to be more special than the twins did, and something to be taken very seriously as a rule. Raven had occasionally poked her about it, in her worse moods. 'Nothing serious. I just told someone I'd be somewhere,' his sister continued offhandedly, feeling all three sets of eyes on her.

'I've heard that before, Raven,' scowled Summer, and Qrow stiffened. She was trying not to sound like she was giving a lecture; that trick hadn't yet worked on Raven, since – like her brother – her response when she thought she was being told what to do was generally to dig in her heels and do something else just to be contrary. 'Is it someone we know?'

'It's someone I know.' Raven's tone didn't change.

'Well, your team could really use your help finding something fun to do tonight,' managed the smaller girl, going for sweetness as a last resort. _Bad move._

'Could always do what I'm gonna be doing,' the older girl shrugged, standing up. Taiyang, by her feet, didn't move at all – and Qrow noticed, with a little worry, the downcast look on his face. 'Tai's been looking uncomfortable all evening. Might as well cheer him up, huh?'

Summer's eyes flashed. Her face briefly contorted with – holy crap, _fury_ – as Taiyang looked up in dismay. That...Qrow tensed, very carefully giving no outward sign he'd readied himself for anything. He knew these signs of old. If Summer tried to slap Raven for what she'd just used to taunt her, Raven would probably deck her and claim self-defence, and Summer was definitely the type to beat herself up for losing control and giving Raven the excuse after it was over. But the brunette mastered herself, going from boiling to seething internally if Qrow was any judge, and drew herself up ramrod-straight with clenched fists by her side. 'I don't know what you think you're trying to say about me, Raven...'

'I'm saying you may as well start sometime,' replied Raven casually, still picking up her coat – and that looked like it stung, how little Raven appeared to _care_ about how obviously she'd hurt Summer's feelings here, and the way she didn't seem to have even noticed Taiyang's as she trampled them underfoot. 'And, hell, he's willing enough, right?' She looked down at him, as if it weren't the first time she'd met his gaze all evening. Qrow leaned forward slowly, ready to move if it looked like Summer was going to give his sister the handprint on the face that – he had to admit – she was steadily earning. But he needn't have bothered. Over the next five seconds Summer went white with rage. Taiyang went crestfallen and grey. Raven just...went.

There was a long pause as she strode off, as calm and controlled as if she hadn't just left two of her team frozen to the spot. Qrow didn't dare move, but Taiyang slowly turned and looked at Summer. 'You okay?' he asked her, weariness in his eyes and his voice. He was used to attitude from her, but this was new, and it hurt. 'That was...way out of line. For anyone.'

' _How dare she_?' whispered Summer, fists still clenched, trembling slightly, barely audible even to the boys mere feet from her. 'She – Tai, why do you – Gods, I don't know how you _let_ her talk about you like that. She just treated me like I was some kind of _second best_ and then told you to settle for me! So you'd have _something to do_! How can you let her-' Summer's throat closed, and her question was strangled off as the tears began. Now, Qrow moved – pulled himself out of the chair, took his leader's hand and led her to it to sit down, perching himself on the arm to her left as she shook and sobbed. Tai stayed where he was, at the bottom of a crater in his head, but leaned back so his shoulders rested against the front of the seat and Summer's shins. A long sigh escaped him; Qrow, still warily silent, figured his buddy would be haunted by the mental image of his crush doing some very personal things with someone else tonight. Never a good position for anyone. He looked back and forth between the two, briefly at a loss for how to help.

Inspiration finally struck while he was mentally reviewing the conversation – partly out of desperation and partly out of shock that it had happened. He touched Summer's shoulder gently, and leaned down with the kind of gravelly whisper that had helped him achieve some rather more discreet evenings of his own with a girl or two over the past months. 'Summer...' he began, then paused. 'Summer, I got a question. The game you mentioned, it's about stories, right?'

There was a long few seconds of shaky breathing before Summer nodded. She looked up at him and cleared her throat once or twice. 'Dice and...stuff, yeah,' she whispered, her voice still a little wobbly for speaking out loud. 'I could go and get it?'

'Tell you what,' he grinned. 'We'll have Raven here, I'll pretend to be her. I'll just glare at people half the time and be a total bitch if anyone tries to be nice to me – aagh,' he added at a brief pinch on his arm from the girl. She looked up at him more steadily now, and shook her head once she was sure he was paying attention. 'Okay. No cartoon villainy from her, even if she deserves it. Let's leave her out of it, I'll be two people in the story if it needs four folks' worth. If you tell me where it is – hey, Tai. Tai? Wake up, buddy. We're gonna make a story, have some fun for ourselves...'

Five minutes later, following a hurried trip to STRQ's dorm and another to the buffet tables for munchies and a drink or two, the trio sat down and Summer opened the game's main guidebook to the start of one of her favourite story templates. Dice had been distributed, a couple of pre-built characters handed out to the attentive boys, and after a sip of water she seated herself as Dungeon Master.

'This is a tale of heroism from unlikely places,' she began, her voice strengthened and growing more confident as the familiar introduction took shape. 'Of the brave little halfling, Bunch, and her infamous companions...'

* * *

 _ **AN: Probably pretty clear whether I'd give Raven Branwen the time of day, huh. Still, she's made her choices, right?**_

 _ **Also noticed I've yet to include Summer without making her cry. Should fix that soon.**_


	5. History Loves Company

_**Finally. God, I'm dreading this almost as much as Tai and Jaune are.**_

* * *

The kitchen in the Long-Rose household was warm. Warmly decorated, and warm from the gently humming oven in the corner. The scent of roasting beef filled the air, and despite his apprehension Jaune felt his mouth begin to water. He stamped down on the feeling; this was serious. Whatever it was.

Taiyang paused, gripping the back of one of the caramel-coloured oak chairs placed around the central table. Not for the first time, he was grateful they'd chosen hard wood for it; two daughters like his, and soft stuff like pine would have been matchsticks years ago. Similarly, the grip he had on the chair back at this moment would have had a less durable piece of furniture groaning and creaking in protest. After a few seconds he glanced at the uneasy teenager and hurriedly released his grip; he didn't want the boy to think he was angry.

'So,' he began, after a long second. 'I said a thing. It was a really dumb thing to say and I hurt you with it, and I'm sorry I did. I hadn't...made the connection until after I opened my mouth.'

There was a long pause. Jaune was stuck between relief and dismay at how this had turned out so far, and in that unhappy emotional ambiguity it was simpler not to react much. But he did take a step forward, and rest his own hands on the back of another chair. 'Ruby told you?' he asked, tonelessly. Taiyang nodded, and pulled out the chair to half-sit on it. The room was growing stifling in this tension.

'She told me what she saw,' he replied gently. 'And that...well. How you two were.'

Jaune's hands tightened on the back of the chair. _How they'd been._ Dancing around one another – or Pyrrha dancing around him, convinced for so long that he hadn't given up on trying to woo Weiss, letting her own chances to make her feelings known just...slip by, one after another. She'd probably handled things the way he still did when he was afraid, and told herself she'd tell him another day. There'd always be another day. And then there hadn't, and by the time she showed him she loved him she'd had ten minutes left to live. She'd known that, and told him everything she needed him to know in that one time-stopping kiss-

He blinked as an opened beer bottle slid to a halt on the table surface in front of him. His eyes instantly blurred and he was aware that his throat hurt; it was quieter than it had been a minute ago. Taiyang's eyes alone told him he'd been saying all that out loud. In his sudden shame he picked up the bottle and stared into it, feeling tears track down his cheeks. A hand clapped onto his shoulder gently, and when he looked into the older man's face Taiyang silently nodded his head toward the door to the back porch. Jaune followed without a word.

The porch was clean and dry, well-sanded, its railing worn smooth from years of hands on its surface, children's feet balancing on it, warm embraces leaning against it. Just resting his hand on the lacquer-smooth wood, Jaune felt the times and experiences this place had seen in the lives of the family that lived here. He was still staring at it wordlessly when Taiyang spoke again.

'I never got to meet her,' he said, softly. 'But Ruby wrote home a lot, and mentioned all of you, and she was...her name came up a lot. I'd like to hear about her,' he added, turning to look at Jaune, placing the weight of the conversation on Jaune's shoulders – but also giving the boy the simplest and best task he could.

After a while, Jaune started to speak. Haltingly, he told of his first impression, how he'd practically blanked her in his rush to impress Weiss, and his voice flooded with self-recrimination to admit it. How polite she'd been, how _nice_ she'd been to absolutely everyone. The paragon she'd been in the eyes of all who'd heard of her, and the easy friendship she'd struck with the one idiot in sneakers who hadn't. The devotion she'd shown as his partner from their first minute together in the trees, a meeting she'd managed to arrange herself with her incredible skills saving him from a backbreaking impact against a tree or a rock. The instant synergy against the deathstalker. Her happiness when Ozpin had chosen him to lead. Her reaction to his shameful secret – a secret he left out of the conversation other than a quick _I let her in on some pretty awful stuff I'd done that really wasn't flattering and she forgave me before I'd even taken another breath_. Her mere presence, and that of a threat to her safety, being the inspiration he needed to throw off a bully making his days a living hell...he took a deep drink from the bottle on reflex when he felt his throat dry up, and another every time his voice grew choked from the sweetness of those memories with the benefit of hindsight. He talked slowly and wearily of the absolute angel she'd been to him, every second she'd been able to, and then more bitterness would creep into his voice when he described his own reactions to her – how blithely he'd completely failed to notice her affection until it was far too late for anything but the most blatant sign she could give him. When his bottle was empty, he left it hanging between a couple of fingers as he leaned against the railing and took a slow, deep breath to try to relieve the weight on his shoulders.

Taiyang had stayed silent, listening intently, throughout the story he'd heard. Now he raised his own beer and took a long, slow drink. He knew Jaune was technically a few years too young to drink alcohol, but damned if he was going to deny the kid the chance to have a brew and talk it out. _Damned_ if he was. Now, Jaune's words having tapered off, he figured it might be time for some context and explanation as to why he'd asked.

'Ruby loved her mom,' he began softly. 'so I bet she talked about her a few times when you guys were at school together.' At Jaune's slow nod, he continued in the knowledge he had the boy's attention. 'But I don't know how much she told you, and she sure never had my perspective. And Summer...she was like her namesake, no two looks at her were alike. We were on a team at school, with Qrow, and his sister. Yang's mom, Raven.' He paused. 'And no, things didn't get freaky like that. She just...well, I was basically hung up on Raven for my entire time at Beacon, even during the times when she, uh – well, put it bluntly, she was kind of a bitch to people sometimes. It felt like she would do it just because she could, if she was in a bad mood, and then when they got mad she'd tell them it was their fault for not being able to handle it. I saw more in her than that, all of us on Team STRQ did, and we settled down after school. I took her temper as it came, and she took what she saw as my lesser strength, I guess, in her stride. And...then we had a baby, and as soon as Yang was on solid food she left. Just...up and gone, one day.' His fist tightened where it rested on the railing, and Jaune stayed silent. He'd never had a conversation like this with another guy before, but some part of him knew instinctively that this was Taiyang's turn to speak.

'So I was left with a baby girl who couldn't comprehend her mother was gone, a best friend who first wouldn't and then _couldn't_ tell me where his sister was any more, and Summer.' He turned to lean back against the railing, gazing up through the ceiling at a smile he couldn't see any more. 'Summer had never stopped coming to see us. She'd felt terrible about it, and I felt a little awkward too, because all through school while I was following Raven around like a puppy...Summer liked me. Loved me, really, from pretty early on. And I didn't notice.'

Jaune went very still, and very quiet. He didn't even blink, staring out at the night as it hit him, and a fresh tear slid down his cheek.

'So when Summer offered to move in for a while and help, and I gratefully accepted...she ended up staying another six years,' he sighed. 'And I...made myself be less blind. And a lot less stupid. I always kinda-sorta acknowledged what she'd felt for me, but – hell. Sometimes I wonder what my life would've been like if I'd noticed her from the beginning. What the hell I could have stopped myself from missing out on, like an idiot. And, like an idiot, sometimes it takes me a minute to remember that I would only have one daughter, and I wouldn't _ever_ want that.' Tai sank onto his butt, one leg stretched out in front of him, the hand with his remaining half-a-bottle resting on his other bent knee. 'Summer was...like you said about Pyrrha. An angel. She never asked for anything out of me, not until I'd acknowledged her feelings and come to return them. Then, well, I was hers to ask things of, like she was mine. And while I had her in my life like that...I guess I don't need to tell you I know how you feel.' He let his head fall back to _clonk_ lightly against the wood. 'But at the same time, I don't. I...got some time with my angel and you didn't. And that's not fair, and it's not right. There's no making it right, not for either of us, I guess. But...can I ask you something?'

'Anything,' croaked Jaune, before he shook himself a little and wiped his eyes, clearing his throat and settling himself on the porch a few feet from his friend's father.

'If you're like me...you're mad about this, too. You're really, really furious.' Taiyang turned his head slowly to look at the boy. 'And that's good. You need to give yourself permission to be angry when you lose someone, so if you're mad as well as sad then you're off to a decent start. And – hell. I don't think that anger's ever gonna go away. If you ever meet the one who did it, then it might easily come to the surface again, but that's only a problem if you let the anger make your decisions for you. Same as any other time, you know?' Jaune nodded, once, slowly. The boy's face was serious. _Good._ 'I had a chance, when I lost Summer, to go after the people I held responsible for her death. I was tempted, too, but I was held back by the fact that I had two kids who relied on me. I wanted revenge, gods, you've got no – well, okay,' he broke off, with a wry chuckle at the look on Jaune's face. 'I guess of all people, you've got some idea. But what I wanted didn't compare to what the ones I love _needed_ from me, and that wasn't to go haring off after a killer. I had to be a father, and not take risks solo, because my kids needed a dad and because if I'd done something hasty and dumb then I'd have tossed my life away and ruined every bit of happiness Summer ever wanted from me. I asked myself a really simple question: if Summer had been there to hear me suggest it, what would she have done? - and the answer was simple. She'd have kicked my ass, then cried until I felt like the biggest jerk in the world, and then probably kicked my ass again just to remind me what being alive is like so I didn't want to ditch the feeling anytime soon.' He laid his head back on the wood once more. 'I guess it's worth asking yourself that about Pyrrha.'

Jaune's breath shook, once, then his head dipped and his hands came up to cup his face. It was a long, almost silent moment before he looked at Taiyang, trying to force himself under control. The older man had a point, and a good one. Jaune's friends needed him, and needed to know he was safe, and Pyrrha had _loved him_. Hurling himself onto a revenge quest like a wooden soldier onto a bonfire was an idea that would have repulsed and upset her, deeply, and left her mothering him for days to make sure he wasn't planning anything self-destructive like that. 'I...yeah. I know. She'd have hated every word of a plan like that, even if I'd somehow convinced Ren and Nora to go for it.' He paused a moment. 'Will...uh. You won't tell the guys I – I cried?'

Taiyang blinked, looking at him in surprise. 'I – why the hell would I tell them you didn't cry?' he asked bluntly. 'You think for a second your best friends would believe me? You think they don't know already?'

'...It's hardly heroic,' muttered the boy, knocking the heel of his boot against the decking with a soft thud. No rocks to kick, here. 'More to the point, leaders need to be strong.'

'Any idiot can be strong,' replied Taiyang immediately. 'That dillhole Winchester kid is strong. I knew his dad, Jaune, that whole family's meaner than a bag of rats. Don't use the same metric for leadership that makes them look good.' He leaned over, clapping Jaune on the shoulder again. 'I know I'm not exactly in a position to give fatherly advice, or anything. But we're talking as men, men who know what loss is like, and I can at least point out something experience teaches too slowly: crying is a sign you give a damn. Never trust anyone who claims they never cry, Jaune, because the best case scenario is they're lying. Worst case, they're telling the truth, because someone who doesn't cry doesn't care. And those people are lethal, if you hang around them long enough.' He squeezed the boy's shoulder, once. 'Never be afraid to cry in front of people you trust. It'll only show them they can trust you all the more. I know a guy standing on a porch with a boy his daughter knows usually asks for a different promise, but my girls can take care of themselves and I know your type. I know because I'm that type, and I'm asking you to promise me that one thing. Will you?'

Jaune swallowed hard, his breathing ragged, and let his tears spill again as he nodded once. His shoulder began to shake again, and this time he let it come freely. The hand on his shoulder stayed, a friend's support for someone who should never have been left needing it for this, and the night's quiet was split with hard, choking sobs as he curled in on himself.

Jaune Arc began to heal.

* * *

 _ **AN: And I could very easily end this here, I think. It's not a bad place to leave off, and doesn't start to infringe on the established timeline, such as it is.**_

 _ **However, I feel like I'm not quite ready to put down these action figures of Team STRQ yet. So what I'm thinking is that I'll let you guys decide for me. I've got about forty followers on this, I think, and I'm actually immensely gratified by that – thank you all, for giving me the support and encouragement those notifications brought me. It means a lot. So I'm going to listen to you now. Leave a review, if you'd like me to add on some more chapters about STRQ where I feel like they can fit, during their school years and maybe post-Beacon (certainly post-Raven) in Tai and Summer's case. I await your opinions on the matter, and I'll go where you guys want in this.**_


	6. Lost and Found

_**And more it is! At least a little bit anyway, but I'll try to keep output coming if I keep seeing reviews asking that I do so. Sorry about the break in uploads there. Real life crowds one so.**_

 _ **I'm going to be doing shorter chapters, vignettes rather than what I've been doing so far; this might allow me to continue posting whatever chapters I can find in my head without pushing myself to fill out a set word count with them.**_

* * *

 _Patch. Fifteen years ago._

'PAPAAAAAA!'

Aw, nuts. 'Yang?' replied Tai, standing up from the mess of engine parts in the shed and putting his head round the door. From the jumping of his daughter's voice throughout that yell, it sounded like she was – yep. Toddling her way angrily out of the house at top two-year-old speed, her round little face flushed with anger. Her eyes were bright scarlet – a tendency that still shocked him sometimes, left him almost panting with the rush of grief and loss and anger and...he stomped down on that train of thought. _Not now._ 'What's wrong, babygirl?'

'Yaaaang!' came a different voice from behind the irate toddler – and a flash of white left the house as Summer ran after her and caught up. She visibly held back from scooping the girl up, mindful of what little Yang had begun doing in response to such treatment at the wrong time. Angry flailing from a tiny girl was still capable of loosening a tooth, and Yang didn't hold back. Tai was already moving by the time Summer caught up and moved around the girl to stand in her field of vision. 'Yang? What's the matter, sweetie?' she asked, a little breathless, as she sank to her knees and then seated herself on the grass. It was a tactic she employed to stop Yang feeling intimidated or spoken down to, and to reinforce the appearance of calm when Yang was in a strop.

'Mama,' said the little one simply, her scarlet eyes filling with angry tears. 'MAMA!' - and Taiyang reached them, dropping to his knees and clutching her to him in the tightest embrace he felt safe with. Yang had already begun to sniffle and hiccup, and put her fat little fists up to her eyes to try to stop the tears when they fell. Tai felt the movement, and his heart broke all over again. She'd been doing that a while; it looked like she'd seen her dad training to distract himself when he couldn't hold his grief back, and had internalised the idea that one could respond to grief by using fists. That was as far as she'd taken the logic so far; Tai already worried about how to channel that kind of habit safely.

Summer looked on with a pity he almost couldn't bear, frozen in place. She'd told him more than once that she couldn't help feeling like an outsider when Yang dreamed of her mother and Tai comforted her. It had been ten months now, Raven's disappearance without a word having blasted Tai to his core and left him reeling, and the dreams were no less frequent. He'd found himself taking over both parents' shares of work toward raising the best person he could, and almost immediately begun to sink under the weight of grief and responsibility.

Summer had been a godsend, really. As soon as she'd heard what happened she'd come over and asked if there was something she could do to help. Tai, like an idiot, had tried to tell her he had things under control and it would just take some time to get himself steadied. To her credit, Summer had taken him by the wrist and dragged him to a couple of chairs in the kitchen for a frank talk about what was needed to raise a child – getting Taiyang to tell her himself, and then suggesting ways she could help in fulfilling those needs. Her rapid responses had been infuriating at first; in the face of someone mired in mourning, a simple and effective problem-solving from someone less affected often ended up feeling like a trivialisation of that grief. She'd borne out his angry, monosyllabic replies, and sat through his repetitive tirade about being a grown man and not needing to have his hand held through life now. She'd not even bowed her head when, in the grip of irrational defensive anger, he'd hissed accusations about her motives in coming that had made him ashamed of himself every single day since he'd let them go. Then, as now, it wasn't Summer that began to weep. As soon as he'd spat that poison in her face, he'd caught his breath and reeled in horror at his own words, and had practically fallen to his knees in front of her for her forgiveness. It had broken the dam inside him, to find out how far his grief had twisted into directionless anger. The next sensation he'd remembered was warmth, as she knelt beside him and held him through deep, wracking sobs of impotent fury and loss. He'd since wondered, once or twice, whether he could have survived without Summer's help; he knew that a rage like that would eventually be turned inward for lack of another target, and he'd have ceased to be the man he was.

Now, though, Tai's tears were barely noticed past the bawling child he held. Yang was far too distracted to take note of her father's shaking shoulders, or the hiss in his breath, but Summer did. She knew how it pained him; normally her course of action from here was to go and make hot chocolate for the two, so that when they'd gathered themselves a little they could come in and warm up before taking a nap to escape their loss for a while. As she began to turn, though, Summer found it harder to push herself away from this. She'd been growing steadily more involved in the lives of father and daughter over the weeks she'd stayed here, and it had become more difficult to spur herself to leave the two to themselves. She knew it would only be a matter of time until she found herself much more of a maternal figure to Yang; she wasn't a fool, and while Taiyang still didn't feel comfortable broaching the subject they both knew she still held a flame for him in her heart. To see this powerful, kind, steady man so broken was a physically painful experience for Summer, and she'd caught herself feeling absolute contempt for Raven more than once when faced with the consequences of the older woman's disappearance. _Ghosting_ , they'd called it when she was younger; it had been considered contemptible then and still was now, even though its normal social-media connotations couldn't hold a candle to actually vanishing from her family's lives without a word.

Her jaw ached. She relaxed the clenched muscle – it was rare, now, to dwell on Raven for more than a moment without gritting her teeth – and took the plunge, sinking to her knees and embracing the weeping, bereaved pair to let her own tears fall with them. They wept for Raven; she would weep for them both. In that moment she realised that she'd gone further than she expected, but welcomed the extent of the commitment and the private vow she'd begun to make to herself. She would be a better mother to Yang than Raven could have been, if they'd have her. She would simply and quietly continue to love Taiyang, and be an adult about it if the question of remaining unrequited should come up. She would join this family, to whatever extent they would allow her.

Raven could go to hell. Summer would warm them now.


End file.
